jackwheeler

I just purchased a 1993 convertible. Beautiful in every way, except..... Behind the doors, on either side, there is a metal strap that forms part of the convertible top frame, and attaches to the body of the car right behind the doors. This strap is about 1/2" wide by about 3/16" thick, and has a Torx head bolt, which goes through a hole in the end of it. The piece rotates on this bolt when the top goes up and down. Someone has disconnected these on both sides of my car, and the metal straps are just hanging there, unattached at the bottom, with the Torx bolts still in the ends. As near as I can tell, these straps only come into play when lowering or raising the convertible top. They seem to keep the top properly aligned as it goes up and down, but does not appear to have any function in the fully raised or fully lowered position. My question is, does anyone have any experience reinstalling these pieces? I have inserted the bolts back into the holes, and tried to tighten them with a Torx bit in a small rachet. They are difficult to get to, and you can't really see into the hole, so I can't tell if the hole is supposed to be threaded, or if there is supposed to be a captured nut on the back side of the bracket on the car, or what.
The bolt turns and turns, but doesn't tighten up. The response is the same on both sides of the car. I have checked this same connection on other C-4 Corvettes, and sure enough, nice and tight. I would appreciate any help or suggestions you might have. Thanks.

Vette Gator

I *think* I know which bolts you are talking about. One was also missing on my 89. What I found was that I had to hold the head of the Torx bolt toward the inside of the car while tightening it. Whatever nut it was screwing into seemed to be able to turn unless it was pulled against the housing. There was almost no clearance to get at mine, so I used a short Torx bit with a hex shank in a box end wrench to get at the bolts. Taping the shank to the wrench kept it from falling out and made the job much easier.

firstvetteRI

I recently bought a 93 convertible. The "strap" or support or whatever it's called on the passenger side was just dangling. It would rattle occasionally when driving with the top up. I saw that it was originally bolted to the plate with a torx head bolt because the strap was fastened securely on the drivers side.

I dug through my collection of nuts and bolts and found an 8MM x 25MM bolt. By losening the three nuts holding the plate to the chassis I was able to move the plate enough to get the bolt behind it, and through the hole and through the hole on the strap. I then used two 8MM nuts tighened against each other so they would not become lose. I was reluctant to remove the three bolts on the plate completely, because I figured my luck the studs would slip into the chassis forever.

jackwheeler

Thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get the bolt 'started' into the threads. If I pull the head of the Torx bolt toward the center of the car, I will pull the bolt right out of the hole. How did you get yours started? If you want to reply 'offline', you can email me at john.c.wheeler@cummins.com. Thanks.

jackwheeler

Thanks for your suggestion. When you loosened the plate from the chassis, were you able to see what is behind the plate, for the Torx bolt to screw into? Is there supposed to be a welded nut, or captured nut there? Or was yours just flat behind the plate, where the bolt goes through? This is beginning to sound like a design flaw to me. At lease when they designed it, service was not high on the designer's list of priorities. If you want to email me 'offline' you can respond to john.c.wheeler@cummins.com. Thanks.

Jack

firstvetteRI

On my car, on the pass side there was no torx bolt, no nut welded on the backside, just a hole. The hardware must have loosened and felt into the bowels of the car long ago.

The reason I selected an 8MM X 25MM bolt is it was the thickest bolt I had on hand that would fit, nice fine thread to tighten two nuts together, and 25MM was the longest I could fit from behind (with the plate nuts loosened)

Vette Gator

Getting it started was a booger for exactly the reason you describe and because I could only get a small turning radius on the wrench. I just kept trying to thread it in and pulling back to see if the threads had caught. I couldn't see inside, but my best guess was that it's a captured nut inside the plate that only stops turning when it's close to the inside edge. A very frustrating way to spend an hour, but eventually I got lucky and I got the bolt started. It was very satisfying to feel that stupid bolt finally tightened and not hear that dangling bar rattling when to top was up.